WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Radio New Zealand International, Nov. 7, 2012) – Vanuatu’s Electoral Commission has released official results from last week’s general election.

The results show that the Vanuaaku Pati of the former Prime Minister Edward Natapei has the most MPs of any single political party, winning eight of the 52 seats in parliament.

The next biggest party is the People’s Progressive Party of the caretaker Prime Minister Sato Kilman with six MPs.

These two parties are in opposing bids to form a coalition government as lobbying continues among the 16 parties with MPs and four independent MPs ahead of the first sitting of parliament later this month.

Nearly all of the ministers from the Kilman-led coalition government which led for most of the last two years have been re-elected.

The two highest profile losing candidates are the former Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman in Efate, along with the long-time MP and former Finance Minister Sela Molisa in Santo.

Of parties that have increased their number of MPs since unofficial results emerged last week, Ralph Regenvanu’s new Ground and Justice Party has won another MP to secure 4, and the Iauko Group has also increased by one to three.

The Electoral Commission says there were 192,632 registered voters during the election and that 121,792, or 63 percent of voters, cast their votes.

Voter turnout was particularly low in the two largest urban centers, Port Vila and Luganville, where 51 percent and 56 percent of voters respectively participated in the election.